


What Could Have Been

by Krasimer



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Companion Piece, From my other piece!, Hudson could have lived a good life, Magic, Magic Brian makes me so sad, Mostly hinted and one-sided, Other, Reconciliation, The Hudson/Jenkins is barely there, and his fiance is Kiann!, called 'What Little Remains', death is not the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-02-26
Packaged: 2019-11-06 05:50:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17934044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krasimer/pseuds/Krasimer
Summary: We've seen what happened to Keats and to June and to Kiann -- But what happened to Hudson, Jenkins, and Brian?Requested meetings in the Astral plane are not everyday occurrences.A companion piece to my other story, "What Little Remains".





	What Could Have Been

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [What Little Remains](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14352513) by [Krasimer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krasimer/pseuds/Krasimer). 



When he was aware, again, he was in a room with blank, grey walls.

His name, when he had been alive, had been Jenkins. Not his real name, not his first name, but _his_. He had chosen it, had used it to hide himself – no one had known who he was, the history of him. The petty thievery had been an experimental phase, the murder had been a step up from it. Incidental, far from on purpose but he hadn’t been too bothered by the first one.

By the time he had killed Leeman Kessler, it had been old hat.

Jenkins stood up, brushed himself off, and looked down. He was wearing his old favorite outfit, a black button-shirt with a waistcoat and a pair of slacks. Similar to the uniform he’d worn while working on the train, but comforting. It was good to see it again.

Off to one side, he could suddenly see a hole being cut open in the air.

A man stepped through it, looking around for a moment before his eyes settled on Jenkins. With an eyebrow raised, he took a deep breath. “My name is Kravitz,” the man stepped forward, angling the scythe he held down. “I suppose there are some questions you must have. This must all be very confusing for you.” He pulled a paper from his pocket. “You were one of the ones who used a distraction to slip out of the Eternal Stockade, some years back.”

“Ah,” Jenkins clenched his hands, swallowing his nerves.

“It seems as if there has been a request for a meeting,” Kravitz looked down at the paper in his hand, frowning. “Very unusual, for the Astral Plane. Your name is Jenkins, yes?”

“Yes,” he reached up to adjust a bowtie that wasn’t there, anymore. He’d lost it when he’d changed clothes, at the height of his plan for his final theft. “Who requested a meeting? I’d thought that the dead could not do much – The Astral Plane is made for the dead. The dead have no traction, in the world of the living. There is no need for meetings. I know I failed at following your rules,” he grimaced. “But does this mean the rules have changed?”

“No,” Kravitz stepped to the side, revealing the person standing behind him. “But the rules do allow for those wronged to have a final request, if their life was cut short.”

His movement revealed to Jenkins a familiar person.

A very familiar person.

“Oh,” Jenkins tensed up, his jaw clenching. “Hudson.”

“ _You._ ” Hudson’s hands clenched into fists at his side. “ ** _You._** ” He took a deep breath, absentmindedly brushing his hair out of his face. “Not only did you _murder me_ , but you _tried to murder everyone else_ that was _riding **my** train. _You killed the real Leeman Kessler! You—A magical light filled existence and told me a story about the people you tried to murder and you _murdered me_ to use my _hands_ in a couple of meat monsters!” his upper lip pulled back, a snarl like he hadn’t liked using in life.

He always had been such a soft-hearted elf.

“Hudson Harver, life ended by a sudden murder after being knocked unconscious with a sleeping potion…” Kravitz frowned at the paper in his hands. “As part of a plot to acquire one of the Grand Relics?” with a slow sigh, his head dropped back and he closed his eyes. “Could you _not_ have done that?” he rolled his head back up, narrowing his eyes at Jenkins. “Really, _honestly_ , could you have done _anything_ but that?”

“What?”

“They were hidden away for a reason,” Kravitz pinched the bridge of his nose. “I know Taako and the others _made them_ , but they were hidden away for a _Very Good Reason.”_

“Wait,” Jenkins held up a hand, turning away from Hudson. “ _Taako?_ ”

“Yes, Taako. The very best Transmutation wizard in any plane ever, the absolute light of my existence, the wizard who helped kill you,” Kravitz listed off with a near-snarl twisting his mouth. “You threatened the lives of everyone on that train and then some, including the entire city of Neverwinter – do you realize the death toll that would have arisen from your idiotic misuse of your magics and your murderous plot?” he stepped away from Hudson entirely, gesturing him forward. “You absolutely are entitled to an act of revenge,” he told the elf, whose hands clenched tighter, his eyes burning with rage.

Hudson took a deep breath, stepping forward.

Feeling entirely threatened, Jenkins took several steps back. “Wait, but this isn’t—”

“And you’re a _shitty wizard!_ ” Kravitz called over his shoulder as he disappeared back through the portal he’d opened to arrive.

_Oh._

Kravitz had listed three things about Taako, the wizard who’d stopped him with his friends, and the second one had been adoring. In love.

_Fuck._

Hudson grabbed hold of his wrist, throwing him to the ground. “I was going to live a long life,” he said, tilting his head to one side. “I was going to grow old with someone and be happy and be an Engineer for the rest of my life. I _could have,_ ” His eyes closed. “And you took that away from me.” He crouched down, bracing his hand on the ground. “And I’m not going to give you the satisfaction of goading me into an act of full revenge.”

He drew back his arm, the one he had partially covered, and slapped Jenkins as hard as he could.

“I’m going to be the better person,” Hudson stood back up and moved away. “And you’re going to spend the rest of eternity knowing that you murdered me for _nothing_.”

Walking away, he refused to turn back.

The sinking feeling in his gut made Jenkins want to chase after him, _demand_ he forgive him or accept whatever apology he could dredge up. Hudson, in life, had been a pushover – kind but a little simple, in Jenkins’s eyes.

Death, it seemed, had given him something of a spine.

Jenkins had always hated someone having one over him. Hudson walking away, proving himself the better being instead of gathering revenge on him…It stung. He had spent so long pretending to be kind, pretending to be calm and collected and willing to serve. Tamping down on the urge to destroy every idiot that crossed his path had been difficult—

And now _Hudson_ was proving himself to be a better person with a stronger spine and a less vengeful heart.

When he looked up again, he was alone in the room once more.

 

X

 

“It seems today is full of oddities,” a voice came from his left.

When he looked over, Brian blinked a couple of times. “What is the oddity?” he looked down at himself, half-expecting to see a robotic body. He only saw his own body, the self he had grown up with. “Have I done something?”

“Can I ask why you wanted the Gauntlet?” the man standing off to the side brushed away his questions, a scythe held carefully in one hand.

“Because I…” Brian looked away from him, down at his hands. “Power beyond measure. I could have used it to…To do so much. _So much._ ” He clenched his hands into fists. “Power I could have shaped, could have controlled if I had been given the chance!” he laughed, a little bitter. “But I suppose it does not matter now, yes? Zat was a long time ago, a lifetime away—”

“Did you even care about your upcoming wedding anymore?”

The question lodged in his chest as surely as any weapon, wielded with precision as it tore into his heart. “I did,” Brian bit his lip, his shoulders curling up around his chin as he shook his head. “But something…Broke. I was stupid and short-sighted and I hurt many, many people. I was a part of something bigger than myself, something zat could have been _amazing,”_ he finally looked back up at the man. “I don’t think there was enough of me left, darling.”

“You worked for the Bureau, didn’t you?”

“I did, I did work for them.”

The man cocked his head to the side and Brian felt, somehow, that there were more eyes on him than he could see. Like something beyond his awareness was watching him, watching to see if they could spot a lie coming from him.

It made him feel, suddenly and horribly, very small.

“I would, if I were less truthful, say that it was the fault of the Bureau, for putting me in a position zat exposed me to such a thing,” Brian spoke up again, feeling the eyes narrow. “But I suppose zat would be a lie. I do not think zat I was so much of a good person, even before I went tearing off after an artifact I was supposed to retrieve and destroy.” He cast his eyes down again, feeling a heaviness in his gut.

This was him, laid bare before an audience he couldn’t see. Stripped down to his soul in front of a jury and a judge he couldn’t even begin to comprehend.

When he had been brought back, for a time, he had somehow still been guided by the insanity of his power-hunger. Working with Marvey and Jenkins had only made the echoes of life worse, had made his choices stand out starkly. He had started out well – in love and willing to fight to keep the world safe. He just…His ambition had tugged at him, his attention-longing had pulled him apart, his dissatisfaction with existence had been an arrow to his heart. He hadn’t been content to be a no-name person with little power.

He had wanted to be known by the world.

The way the people who had stopped him now were. In hindsight, Brian was glad he hadn’t managed to defeat Taako and his friends when they had fought him. Not either time – it would have been devastating to reality itself, would have allowed the Hunger to win.

“Would you still be satisfied to have some time with the one you loved?” the man spoke again and Brian could practically feel the world holding its breath as the man waited for the answer.

Oh, to see Kiann again.

They had been the love of his life, the one he had vowed to be with. His fiancé, at one point, though he did not know if they would have wanted to continue being so after what he had done. They had met at school, had studied together and grown so close so quickly that it had been like magic. The spells that were directed by their hands were nothing compared to the way Kiann’s eyes sparkled in the sunlight, their smile when something had gone incredibly _right_.

If he could have spent the rest of his life with them, it still wouldn’t have been enough.

As if cold water had been thrown over him, Brian whipped around and looked at the man, his jaw hanging open. “I _left_ them. I _abandoned them!_ I—” he covered his mouth, feeling a wave of grief hitting him square in the chest, like the magic missiles that had been the catalyst of the end of his life. He remembered being a part of Legion, of fighting Taako and Magnus and Merle the second time, the first time, of leaving home to find the Gauntlet –

But never having said goodbye to his love. To his fiancé, whose eyes sparkled in the sun and whose smile lit up his whole world.

“The Gauntlet was part of a set of seven,” the man spoke up once more. “All of them have been destroyed. They will never again lure people to their doom with promises of power, of tempting offers. You and others were destroyed in the search for them – funnily enough, you were one of the few decent-enough people who went mad on the promises of such a thing. Lup made hers especially tempting, it seems. Her love of fire made it more powerful, I suppose.” He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. “Earlier, you asked me what the oddity was.”

“Yes?”

“Do you still want to know?”

Brian froze, looking at the man carefully. His hair was twisted into locs, pulled back into a neat tail with a few braids framing it. From the way he held himself, Brian could see he wielded an amount of power. From what he could remember, this was the man who had pushed Legion into battle.

This was the Raven Queen’s chosen.

“I do,” Brian nodded. “I really do wish to know zat.”

The man stepped to the side. “One Kiann Nievers, wishing to spend just a few more minutes with their fiancé, Brian.” His lips quirked into a smile as his cloak swung out behind him, revealing the person who had been standing behind him as he spoke. “Perhaps a little bit of revenge, but mostly they just missed their love.”

Kiann stood there, just as beautiful and lovely as he remembered and Brian found himself taking a step, then another.

Seemingly tired of his hesitance, Kiann launched themself across the room, latching their arms around him.

As they sank to the floor together, Brian pressed his face into their hair, holding them as close as he could. As far as oddities went, this was the best one he could have ever imagined. When something jangled between them, Kiann drew back and looked down, smiling at the chain around their neck. Their rings were there, Brian realized, strung around Kiann’s neck like they had never let themself forget. Theirs, with black spiders marching in a line, his with butterflies in a never-ending parade.

“Thank you,” Kiann and him spoke at the same time, turning to look at the man.

Brian curled his hand in Kiann’s hair, reveling in the feeling of holding them close again. “ _Thank you.”_ He said once more.

The man nodded, disappearing in the space between moments.

**Author's Note:**

> So there is this. I wanted to go back and write some more about Kiann and Hudson and Jenkins and then some Jenkins headcanons popped up.
> 
> Also: Yes, Kiann and Brian got each other rings that matched the chosen insect/arachnid they identified with. Kiann wore a ring of spiders and Brian wore a ring of butterflies.


End file.
